Oculus Rift VR Hang Glider

The VR Hang Glider is an immersive application that provides users with the experience of piloting a hang glider. Users explore a tropical island full of calm beaches, palm trees, sandbars, and a smoking volcano. It was built to demonstrate principles of VR immersion and to test out the Oculus Rift’s capability as a commodity VR device.<br>The application itself was built in the Unity 3D game engine, and is intended for use on an Oculus Rift HMD. Users can interact with the application with a standard mouse and keyboard, but a custom controller was built for the application, which is designed to replicate the tactile and proprioceptive experience of manipulating the control bar of a real hang glider.

The user’s hang glider on top of a volcano.

Showing the project to a group at the VRAC.

The user’s view through the HMD. Each eye only sees one image, and the images are offset appropriately so the brain interprets the scene as 3D.